Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook sure have thrown a wrench into things.

Look. We all have clients who make us crazy. And sometimes our very favorite clients are having an off day and that can actually be worse than seeing someone you don't care for because it's someone you love who suddenly pulls a major rookie move. You're not expecting your favorite people to say something asinine or insensitive, so it can really wreck your day when someone you thought you had a good relationship with suddenly implies that they think the career you love and work hard at is "beneath" their own daughter, or suggests that they are running 20 minutes late without notice or apology because they have a "job." Yo lady! What exactly do you think I'm doing here?

So at the end of a long day when I'm feeling a little beat up, it's not uncommon for me to go home, kick off the shoes, put on the jammies, grab a drink, and sit down with my homies to share my woes. The Internet has certainly made sharing my woes with my homies much easier. Up until the late ’90s I was pretty much on my own. I didn't really have any nail tech buddies in town, and friends, family, and boyfriends just never really seemed to get it. So when I got online and joined the Beautytech networking groups it was such a relief to find myself in the company of other techs who really understood what I was saying.

Then along came MySpace ... and blogging ... and Facebook ... and once I got talked into having all these accounts, I started building networks of "friends" comprised of not only my colleagues in the industry, but also clients and potential clients.

I am not dedicated enough to hold multiple profiles to separate these groups, let alone toggle back and forth between them. This means that occasionally clients might notice a weary comment regarding someone who gives me a headache, or a rant about client behavior that causes me physical or psychological agony.

Which invariably leads to a slew of "I hope I don't do that’s" and "I hope you don’t mean me's."

I promise. It's not you. And even if it is you, I'm not calling you out. Just take note and if you're really worried about it, don't do that anymore.

I actually warn clients before they look me up on Facebook that the majority of my "friends" on FB are other techs, so my updates are likely to make more sense to people who do nails than to people who get their nails done.

I'm not keen on censoring myself so strictly in these informal forums to make sure I never say anything that might offend a client. But I'm also not going to deny friend requests from the people I know just because they might misconstrue something. I expect people to be mature enough to hack it.